A new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll has some very interesting bits of data scattered within. As expected in this poll, Barack Obama’s favorable/unfavorable numbers are upside down, and support for his unconstitutional “health care reform” has collapsed.

Being an NBC poll, the internals are about what you’d expect:

Out of the 1008 questioned, democrats are over sampled by 6 percentage points over Republicans, though those who claim to have voted for Obama vs McCain are closer with only 3 points between them. So that sort of brings it back a little closer to reality.

Ninety percent of those polled are registered voters, not always the most reliable sample, as out of those polled, only sixty-seven percent voted. So one would have to consider this a soft sample. In other words those polled may, or may not reflect the mood of the nation as well as a sample that contained a higher percentage of likely voters. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 percent.

What is interesting though is what is down further into the poll. Half of those polled were asked who they respected the most and half were asked who they respected the least. This yields some remarkable findings:

Now I’m going to mention some people who have served in public life at some point in the past decade. Please tell me which one or two of these people, if any, you have the most regard and respect for

THIS TABLE HAS BEEN RANKED BY THE HIGHEST PERCENTAGE

Barack Obama………………….28

Colin Powell……………………..27

Bill Clinton………………………..21

George W Bush…………………17

Hillary Clinton……………………14

John McCain…………………….13

Sarah Palin……………………….13

Dick Cheney………………………9

Al Gore……………………………..8

Joe Biden…………………………..3

None…………………………………3

Not sure…………………………….3

Knowing the sample, that doesn’t seem all that unreasonable. What is simply remarkable is Joe Biden, the Vice President, with almost four decades in Congress is tied with “none of the above” and “I don’t have a clue” for dead last on the old respect-o-meter.

This next question is where it gets a bit more interesting:

Now I’m going to read you some people who have served in public life at some point in the past decade. Please tell me which one or two of these people, if any, you have the least regard and respect for.

THIS TABLE HAS BEEN RANKED BY THE HIGHEST PERCENTAGE

George W Bush…………….33

Dick Cheney…………………27

Al Gore……………………….19

Barack Obama……………..19

Sarah Palin…………………..16

Bill Clinton…………………..14

Hillary Clinton………………10

Joe Biden……………………..9

John McCain…………………5

Colin Powell………………….1

None……………………………3

This is interesting to me mainly because it shows how just wording a question differently can yield somewhat different results. While in the first question Barack Obama is the most respected out of the bunch. When a different group is asked to name those who are least respected Obama has the dubious honor of finishing rather high in the ranking here as well. In fact, on the old disrespect-o-meter, more people have little regard for Obama than Sarah Palin.

What does this really mean? Practically nothing! But it tells us that in the grand scheme of things Sarah Palin may have a little work to do yet, when it comes to repairing her image, after being savaged by the media non-stop for a year. Of course, she has plenty of opportunities to do just that.

On the other hand, Barack Obama has done all he is ever going to do. While folks tend to like him personally, he consistently earns poor marks for actual job performance, which is what matters. So, for Obama, it’s all downhill from here.